


Mother, Did You Know?

by a_mind_at_work (Madame_Marauder)



Series: Beli3ver 'verse [7]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Ah wow this is emo-er than intended oh well, Alex is emotional and thus not too logical, But we have rachel!!!!!!, Elams really isnt in this, Fluff, Mother-Son Reunion, Other, RACHEL IS IN THIS FOR ONCE, families, long-lost family, we all know what this is don't we
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 20:20:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12919518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madame_Marauder/pseuds/a_mind_at_work
Summary: It's just a lecture in Econ, just a guest speaker. Right?(May seem a little OOC, but I'll psychoanalyze Alex in the end notes.)





	Mother, Did You Know?

    There's a woman with flowing black hair talking to his professor as Alexander makes his way into Econ, and as always he makes a careful note of how she's dressed. Is she a student, a TA, another teacher, a guest speaker? Judging from her business-casual outfit and the PowerPoint buffering on the projector, he'd call it as the latter.

     His suspicions are confirmed as the teacher introduces her to the class, and she looks up at the students with warm brown eyes that send a bolt of recognition down Alexander's spine. Dr. Faulkner smiles and begins a speech that flows like one of his own.

     By the time she's nearly finished, Alexander is… delighted, for lack of a better term. Her concepts of the responsibility of the banks and government economically are a perfect fit with his, her reasoning scarcely straying from his own, her words timed and delivered exactly right.

      Alexander just wishes he knew who she might have been, that he recognized her. As Treasury Secretary, she could have been any number of investors, speculators, bankers, lawyers, clerks, or the wife of any of the above. He's in the back, idiot that he is, and with little to no information- well, he can only wonder.

      “Ah, we have close to twenty minutes left,” Dr. Faulkner says as she ends her speech. “Q-and-A, anyone?”

      Dozens of hands shoot up, and Alexander is content to soak in the questions and answers as he mulls over how she seems so very familiar, yet so strange. And then someone asks, “Why did you get into finance?”

      Dr. Faulkner taps her nails against the podium she stands at as she thinks, fingers falling not in order but staggered, and she takes a moment to answer. “In my first life, a broken financial system in constant flux drove my sons and I into deep poverty and deeper debt. In this one, I decided to do everything I could to prevent that from happening to anyone else.”

      And suddenly it feels like Alexander’s torso is being crushed, his ribcage abruptly too tight for his lungs. It's not a panic attack, not fear, just shock.

      The guest speaker snorts, and adds, “Finding out my son's contributions didn't hurt the idea, either. He had to get his brains from somewhere, and that somewhere certainly wasn't his father.” The class laughs quietly, but Alexander clenches his pen and prays to god he doesn't look like his world just caved in on itself.

      For thirty-six and twenty years he had moved his way up from the rank of penniless, parentless bastard. His mother died 250 years ago, and that fact has been as constant as the sky being blue and fire being hot.

     Aaron looks over at him with concern in his eyes, and he just stares back hollowly. The world has shifted on its axis- turned upside down, as some might say- and he's feeling the aftereffects.

     The fire that's had permanent residence in his veins as long as he can remember has run cold, and he'd not be surprised if he glanced outside to see the grey winter sky become orange. Aaron kicks him gently from the seat next to him, and Alexander shakes his head. No, he tries to tell himself, that's a common enough series of events, a bland enough backstory in the grand scheme of things. But it isn't, it really isn't.

      He watches dust motes dance in the faint sunbeams streaming across the room, but jerks instinctively when someone coughs. Dr. Faulkner-his-mother-guest-speaker-brilliant-economist- _ his-mother _ smiles understandingly. “Dusty,” she comments, and Alexander mouths the word as she says it. No-one is ever sick, the room is just always dusty.

      His world is rocked; his mother is alive. And here. And healthy. And well-off. And someone's asked her what her son did, and she's just opened her mouth, and his heart is in his throat.

     “Alex did incredible things, especially with where he was coming from,” she says. “I'm proud of him for that. He could have done without publishing the sex scandal, though!”

     The class laughs again, and Alexander hurriedly wipes away the tear that's slipped down his face. Aaron bumps his elbow, and he looks over reluctantly.

     Aaron fixes him with a searching gaze. “Is she talking about you? She is, isn't she? She's your-”

     “Shut up,” Alexander growls. “I don't- okay, look, yes, but I'm not going to make a scene in class. Or at all, we'll see.”

     The younger man shakes his head, and Alexander abruptly remembers Burr had lost his mother at an even younger age than he himself had. “I will never understand you.”

     He freezes, and feels the warmth inside him born from the fact she said she was proud of him, and the old familiar chill of fear that he still hasn't done enough, isn't good enough. “I'll say something,” Alexander hears himself say, and forces himself to mean it.

 

     At the end of class, Aaron steers him away from the flow of people to the door and manages to catch her in conversation before anyone else can. “I don't mean to be intrusive, ma’am,” Aaron says smoothly, “but if you wouldn't mind, who were you in your past life?”

    “You can just call me Rachel if you want,” she replies easily. “And you've probably never heard of me.”

    Aaron shrugs. “I might have.”

    She inclines her head in acknowledgement. “My name was Rachel Faucette. Or Buck. Or Hamilton. Or Lavien. It depended on the year. You would know my youngest son, though.”

    “I can see the family resemblance,” Aaron agrees cryptically, clapping Alexander on the shoulder and pushing him forward as he himself steps back into the wad of people near the door and follows them out. 

     Alexander waits until the last of the students has left the hall to take a breath and look up from the floor. Rachel is standing there, frozen, her pen having clattered to the ground as soon as Aaron had tipped his hand for him, mouth open slightly as if she wants to say something but isn't quite sure what.

     But she eventually breaks the spell- she was always stronger than Alexander could hope to be- and says softly, “Alex? My Alex?”

     “Mama,” he breathes, and he knows it's childish but doesn't quite  _ care _ . She places a warm hand on his cheek, as gently as if he were made of sand, and they stay like that for a long moment until there's a flurry of movement and a strangled noise from one or both of them, and they're in each other's arms with tears welling in their eyes.

     “My son,” she manages to whisper to the top of his head. “My incredible, wonderful, genius son.”

     It's the first time in 250 years he hasn't snapped at someone for calling him that.

     She holds him tight, and it almost makes his tears of joy mix with ones of relief that she's warm and solid and healthy. It's a long moment before they separate, before they stop clinging to each other so desperately, and Rachel catches him by the shoulders and stares at him with tears still pooling in her eyes.

     Alexander can't quite imagine what's going through her mind, but it's probably close enough to his own thoughts;  _ holy shit you're back you're back how do I articulate emotion you're back and you're not sick, not half-starved, not dead because you're here. _

     He can say he knows she's taking in all the same things he is, now, noticing all the small details most would skim over. The fact he's wearing John's fluffy sweatshirt, the fact he doesn't look like the walking dead from either exhaustion or hunger, that his hair is actually clean- he's not oblivious to her assessment. 

     And again, he's doing the same damn thing. Because in this mad, wonderful whirlwind of a second life, his mother has expensive clothes and perfectly styled hair and he couldn't feel her ribs when he hugged her a moment ago.

     He's finally wrangled the words flying around his head into something nearing cohesion, and he's about to say something when he's interrupted by a badly recorded ringtone from his back pocket. Rachel smiles and waves for him to answer.

     “Hey.”

     John sounds concerned on the other end. “Angelica said you weren't in class and didn't answer her texts. What's up?”

     Shit, right. Well, considering it's American History, it's fine. “Yeah, not exactly going to make it there today. Tell her to get notes for me, would you?”

     “Hey, what's going on? You sound like you've been crying, and now you're missing your chance to harp on the professor getting stuff wrong,” John replies. 

     Alexander silently rolls his eyes at him over the phone. “I'm fine, Laurens. I found someone. And no, you wouldn't know her.”

     John sighs, and the phone crackles slightly. “Alright, fair enough. Betsey was just getting worried.”

     “Yeah, no, I'm good. Also, I'm thinking I'm going to have to hand in my membership card for the DMC.”

     There's a pause, then a sharp inhale. “As in the Dead Moms Club? Alex! I'm so happy for you!”

     He tries and fails not to laugh. “That makes three of us. Talk to you later?”

     “Yeah! Yeah, of course, I'm sorry I interrupted! I-”

     “Don't mention it to everyone else, though,” Alexander blurts as it occurs to him. “I'll tell them myself.”

      His boyfriend snorts. “Fair. I love you, go talk to her.”

      “Love you too,” Alexander replies, and hangs up the call, looking back to Rachel with a small smile. “Sorry. John always has the worst timing.”

      She laughs, and he knows he's not imagining the glimmer of relief in her eye at the proof he has actual friends who care enough to call if he misses class. He didn't have a lot of friends when he was young, good ones or otherwise.

      He's a long way from the small, scrappy, pale orphan bastard he once was. He's taller, has learned some measure of self control, is very obviously Not White. 

      But most of all, he has his family, be it found, friendship, or foster. And his family, for the first time in over two centuries, is finally whole again.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you cry? I cried.
> 
> Promised elaboration on what the hell I was thinking: Alexander is hesitant to immediately approach Rachel because she has very obviously built herself a new, better life, and he isn't sure if there's a place for him in that new life. Couple that with the shock of recognizing her in the first place, and the worry at first (though it is later confirmed to be baseless) that he's wrong in thinking it is indeed Rachel, and our boy isn't going to be reacting the most logically. Aaron knows full well how much Alex would regret not approaching her- they were Orphan Buddies, after all- and thus gives him the needed push to act.
> 
> In other news, I have an AU in my head that's the bastard child of the Golden Compass and Spirit Animals, sooo... let me know if anyone wants the angst. There's a similar drabble up as the most recent chapter of 'Embers, let me know if I should spend the time turning it into a real verse.
> 
> My Tumblr, as always: discount-satan
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated.
> 
>  
> 
> Damn that was a long end note


End file.
